


black beauty & penicillin

by cherubique



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brotherly Bonding, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24119176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherubique/pseuds/cherubique
Summary: Dave Strider is a director, producer- and doting older brother to Dirk Strider, above all of his other titles. Sometimes he gets a little carried away with work in his cramped little office, but it's good to be home.
Relationships: Dirk's Bro | Alpha Dave Strider & Dirk Strider
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	black beauty & penicillin

Dave is smoking. He’s perched in his home office, the apartment cluttered up with reams of paper half printed on in the meandering font of his antique typewriter- an ironic decoration turned permanent, vital fixture. He’d bought it for a penny and a song at an auction for someone’s long dead’s relative’s estate sale. The story makes for an easy icebreaker at parties. Half finished scripts with slashes of thick red pen slathered across their fronts make up the snow drifts around his desk, rammed haphazardly up against the wall. There’s more mugs of half congealed coffee rings than any human being should responsibly have.

The little leaning tower of Pisa he’s been crafting out of them wobbles precariously, as he shovels a cup full of pencils with ridiculous horse head eraser tops off to the side to make room for his laptop. It’s in a sleek red case, SBAHJ stickers ironically plastered on it into a many eyed, multiple limbed nightmare of a conglomerate creature. There’s a bright orange hat sticker pasted on top of the mound’s head, like a fascinator. Equally vivid sticky notes dot the room, along the horizontal sides of stacks of papers, reference books clustered alongside sagging shelves. 

The walls of his office have yellowed, sticky with nicotine. Dirk doesn’t enter the room much- derisively declaring that he wants nothing to do with the army of mice he must be sheltering inside of its confines, and only asking that he at least tries to bring out the dirty dishes so they don’t have to rediscover novel strains of antibiotic fuzz from his coffee cups. Most of the muck is covered up with oil paintings: the subjects varied and eccentric- Naval Commander portraits of Rose’s cats in soberly stark lighting, John as a clown complete with stark white face paint and a cherry red nose with his tongue stuck out at the painter, a surrealistic intepretation of some of the flowers cascading over Jade’s island and embedding themselves in her skull, grinning hauntingly at the viewer. The last one’s mint chip eyes have an unnerving habit of following someone around the room. He’s not entirely sure that Rose didn’t specifically hex that one. 

If they do discover some novel Penicillin 2.0- Dirk wants the credit, because _he’s_ the one who maintains the coffee machine around here, and washes out the French Presses when Dave is eyeball deep in shooting season and marking up copies of colour edits. There are multiple, because he’s too impatient to wait for another pot to steep. Dave agrees with him just to humour the kid- lanky and tall, going through yet another growth spurt. He notices that Dirk’s got another one of his cheap gel pens stuck behind his ear. It’s probably been used for the experimental cross hatching and colourful explosions Dirk’s been trialing in his own work, crouched over his sketchbook at the kitchen table, in white cotton socks and heart dotted white pyjama sets, cross legged and as neatly postured as when he was in kindergarten and taking pride in being able to sit quietly unlike his cacophonous classmates. 

He snarks out of the corner of his mouth that soon those ridiculous anime spikes and swoops of carefully constructed sculptures made of human hair, pomade, and gel will crunch underneath the doorway, if he keeps at it- ankles flashing from where the hem of his sweatpants have already grown out. Dirk flips him off with both hands, in those shiny leather fingerless gloves he insists on dragging around like a tatty, mange afflicted stuffed animal. He laughs, though- the bite behind the gesture smoothed out. His nails have chipped polish on them- leftover from Roxy and him happily sprawling out in the living room, Roxy concentrating on using his hand to swatch out new nail polish colours: holographic pink, tie dye stamping tools, vinyls in dizzying shapes and cutouts. 

He’ll have to arrange for taking him shopping sometime soon, spend an afternoon waltzing around a flurry of high end stores, only for Dirk to emerge looking as if he’s dug around in a Walmart’s pre packaged bundles of scratchy tank tops and black Fruit of Loom briefs. Sweatpants are sweatpants, no matter the price tag associated with them, as far as Dave is concerned. Whatever Dirk’s comfortable in, though- even if he ribs him gently while hipchecking the kid aside in their bathroom, Dirk rolling his eyes and sighing heavily for dramatic effect, spitting toothpaste foam into the sink with a vitriolic splatter. Dave likes ruffling his hair, when it’s still soft and fluffy from his bedhead, curly and messy, before he’s slicked it down and arranged it just so. 

“Go get the phone for me, would you?” Dave asks, as Dirk continues to stand in the doorway, leaning against its edge. His arms are crossed, orange irises peering down the bridge of his Roman nose at his older brother- unamused, half hidden by the black tint of his triangular sunglasses. They’re slipping a little down his nose- probably in need of new grip pads to hold them in place. They still remind Dave of his car windows, as if Dirk had just taken pinking shears to them haphazardly. 

“We’re getting pizza. You should get some of those cheesy bread garlick-y twist things you love so much. Make it a party night, I’ll throw in Black Beauty and the original Jurassic Park to sweeten the deal, if you’ll put up with your embarrassing older brother,” he says. It’s more of an excuse to get Dirk to leave the room than anything- but Dirk’s face lights up at the prospect of another night with horse movie reruns from childhood and dinosaurs devouring busloads of frightened tourists. 

He scurries off- and Dave let’s a coil of smoke out of his mouth, slippery and puffed out into rings, rupturing somewhere onto the popcorn ceiling. He rubs at one of his eyes- the deep maroon making the dusky half moons thumbed in beneath them look even nastier. He could do with a long sleep in. There’s not much left to his cigarette, more of a smouldering butt than anything else, the cherry close to singing his fingertips. He brings his hand to his mouth, finishes it off for the last lungful or two it’s good for- and ashes it onto the scarred and pitted wooden surface of his desk. 

Rose would lose her mind at the way he’s treating the solid rosewood surface, but she isn't here right now- and a little crocheted lace doily scattered around for ironic decoration hides a number of sins. Or more ugly SBAHJ merch. He’s sure that he’s got a mousepad lying around here somewhere. He smudges the end around, making sure it’s fully stamped out- and tossed it into the top cup of the crooked tower of cups, before pushing himself away from the desk and hauling himself up. His back cracks, a noisy symphony from his spine as he stretches, to the left and then the right, knitting his fingers together as he stretches up on his tip toes and reaches towards the ceiling, and then bends over to fumble towards his feet. The socks he’s wearing are little black cats, their pink triangular noses standing starkly out. Another Christmas gift from Rose. He’s been trying to keep limber- so that he isn't floored completely when Jake and Jane come over in the summer, both of them with what has to be patented bear crushingly tight hugs. That was just embarrassing. 

“Don’t start the movies without me,” he yells out- and Dirk’s reply is muffled assent, as he’s clearly wrestling with the stack of take out menus stuffed into a side drawer in the kitchen, poring over what options he’s in the mood for demolishing in front of the TV tonight. Dave takes a breath in- holds it for a minute, before letting it whistle out of his mouth. It’s good to be home- away from the rapid fire rattling of Hollywood and slick suited investors, the plum mouthed actresses sullenly pouting and creasing their copies of scripts. It’s good to be with family, again.


End file.
